


if i leave, don't save my seat

by earpcin



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Gen, Gun Violence, Heavy Angst, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-20 23:44:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17632013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earpcin/pseuds/earpcin
Summary: "Wynonna’s smile then reminded Waverly of how they used to practice camping in the fields around the Homestead. It was just the three sisters, and after that, just two. They’d light a fire with too much kindling and not enough fuel, and it would starve to death within the hour. When there was nothing left but ash and embers and waves of warping heat to lean into, they’d sit together and stare back across the field at the Homestead. There was an oil lamp on the porch, casting warm light, making the house seem like a doomed ship on a quiet, black sea. The grass moved with the wind and in the low light, it looked like a steady tide. Under the inspiration of the late hour, Waverly would imagine they were mutineers."





	if i leave, don't save my seat

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y’all, I was having a super bad night and wrote this instead of killing myself lmao. It’s called a coping method, look it up. This is, obviously, very triggering. Even if it doesn’t trigger you, it will make you sad. Fair warning.

 

If Gus knew, she would’ve killed them.

Waverly kept glancing back at the house behind her, each look separated by twenty paces toward Wynonna, each time expecting to see a form running toward her, arm raised and yelling. Never mind that Gus wasn’t home. Never mind that Wynonna was the one carrying the gun and the cigarettes and the alcohol, and Waverly wasn’t technically doing anything more than walking around her own property.

She walked until she was out of sight and slipped quietly into the cover of the tree line. Most of them had died in the winter, and now their remains carpeted the ground, making each step she took sound crunchy and painful. On the other side of the thicket, hidden behind the crosshatch of branches of leaves, Waverly could see one shape darker than the rest. And moving. She headed toward it, and just as she crossed the threshold of visibility from the trees, something snapped under her foot. The shape froze, then turned.

Wynonna pushed herself off the fence as Waverly got closer, and landed on both feet. There was a bit too much effort in it for it to look effortlessly cool, but the new leather she’d just gotten – Waverly wouldn’t ask how, in case she didn’t like the answer – helped with the impression. Including the new addition to her wardrobe, Wynonna wore black on black and black. Everything except for the tiny silver flash of her watch.

“Hey kiddo,” Wynonna said, the words carried away on the last exhale of the cigarette she’d been smoking. Wynonna ground out the butt on the fence post and tossed it somewhere behind her.

“Only you can prevent forest fires,” Waverly said. She pulled her hands out of her jacket pockets, arms out, initiating the hug.

Wynonna walked into it. She wrapped her arms around Waverly, almost grabbing her own elbows.

“Whatever, that bear is government propaganda,” Waverly felt the movement of Wynonna’s jaw on her shoulder, voice in her ear, focused on the left like a pair of broken earphones, “He probably made money off the Iraq war.”

“Ha-ha,” Waverly said, voice musical but controlled, like she didn’t find it funny. She did.

The hug went on for just a beat more than was entirely comfortable, and when they detached there was an odd sort of awkwardness, one misplaced between siblings. At least to Waverly’s view, though Wynonna had always been a little oblivious to more subtle social cues. Waverly put it down to Wynonna’s absence – they were sisters, yes, but Wynonna’s presence had been so infrequent and unstable that she supposed they functioned more like acquaintances.

That was why, when Wynonna had texted her with a location and the barest bones of a hair-brained idea, Waverly had said yes before she had time to consider the trouble she was in. It was time with Wynonna, quality or not, and Waverly had learned the hard way that she had to take what Wynonna offered before she swiped it right off the table again.

“You got it?” Waverly asked, peering over Wynonna’s shoulder and back toward the fence, making sure she hadn’t missed something.

“Right here,” Wynonna smirked. She pulled her leather jacket back, exposing first the rip in her shirt and then the glint of metal. Something twitched in the bottom of Waverly's stomach, a wire turned on a buzzing with the sharp excitement of doing something she wasn't supposed to. Wynonna noticed the change in her expression and covered the gun again.

"Okay, keep it in your pants, baby girl," Wynonna punctuated her sentence with a soft punch to Waverly's shoulder, "let's roll."

Wynonna clicked her tongue and nodded her head behind her, in the direction where she'd parked her car. It was just over the border of Gus and Curtis' property, behind trees on one side and a hill on the other, so it would remain invisible to anyone scanning the land from the house. Waverly followed her to the rust bucket of a truck, and climbed gingerly into her shotgun position. The radio came on when Wynonna started the car, and Waverly winced at the volume of the static.

Wynonna's hand shot over to turn the volume down, "Sorry. You can use the AUX."

Waverly accepted the cable from her, vaguely impressed that the car was even AUX compatible, and immediately started the playlist she was sure would irk Wynonna the most. Waverly saw Wynonna roll her eyes in the mirror as the first cords of Carly Rae Jepsen came on, fighting for some clarity against the static of the bad electronics. Wynonna grumbled something about classic rock and 'music nowadays', but Waverly caught her nodding her head along to a guitar riff as they pulled onto the dirt road. She said nothing. Wynonna needed her small victories.

The car took every bump on the road with little grace. Waverly found herself holding onto the grip above the window before they even got onto the real road, and her nerves only got worse with time. The way something in the engine rattled whenever they went over forty miles per hour didn't do much to instill her with confidence, either. As Wynonna finally took the last turn on their drive, Waverly found herself reluctantly acknowledging that Gus _did_ have a point about the roadworthiness of Wynonna's vehicle.

Wynonna hopped out of the car and was walking before Waverly had even gotten to undo her buckle. Waverly rushed to catch up, and in the process slid across the black patches of snow on the road, unable to catch herself before colliding into Wynonna's back, hard.

"Shi-!" Wynonna turned them around as they fell, so that she landed on her back with Waverly on top of her. The snow back at the side of the road helped a little, but the impact still left her winded, and the entire back of her body feeling cold and wet and unpleasant.

After the worst of the shock - from both the sudden motion and the cold - had left her, Wynonna's hand flew to her hip. She'd seen enough movies to leave her with the fear of the gun just 'going off' and killing one of them. Wynonna found it still in place, still holstered, and felt the safety still in place.

"You alright?" Wynonna asked, as soon as she had enough air to speak. She pushed Waverly off of her, gently, just enough to be able to move her body out from under her and start to regain her footing.

"Y-yeah."

Waverly dusted off her knees and checked herself, quickly, for injuries. Finding herself relatively unarmed, she accepted the hand Wynonna held up for her. Wynonna hoisted her up, and pulled her close to her body. For a second, they swayed, like they might fall over again. Wynonna put her hands on Waverly's waist. Waverly put her hands on Wynonna's shoulders. And then, they were steady.

Wynonna let her go but took her hand again.

"Careful," Wynonna said, and then led her off the road and over the fence and to the little shooting range she'd set up for them to practice.

Wynonna always took the first shot, claiming it was her right as the eldest, and as the one who had rolled the barrel they used to shoot at here in the first place. The big target she'd spray painted - blue and white because she didn't have a can of red - had been shot into looking like some kind of modern art installation. It was more hole than target. With each new shot, Wynonna couldn't even tell what she'd hit, unable to tell one bullet hole apart from the other.

The last time she'd looked at it, in the half-light of a setting sun and the slight blur of the whiskey she'd been sipping, Wynonna convinced herself that they could still ring a couple of good shots out of it. But then, holding the gun loosely pointed at the floor, Wynonna sighed when she realised she'd have to come up with an alternate solution.

She'd shot tin cans before, and that was the first thing she'd thought of, but Wynonna didn't have anything like that on her or in the truck. Where was useless junk when you needed it?

Wynonna patted her pockets, and found her cigarettes stuffed into the inside of her jacket. She opened the packet and found just two left inside. Perfect. Wynonna took both out, and gave one to Waverly. She put the other in her mouth. Wynonna walked across the practice field and, with a flourish, set the empty pack down on top of the barrel.

"Hit _this_ ," Wynonna said. She lit her own cigarette first, and gave the lighter over to Waverly. While Waverly's cold fingers struggled with the mechanism, Waverly took a swig from the whisky she'd brought with, and set the bottle back down by her feet. She lined up the shot, and closed one eye.

Waverly thought her claim that a shot or two always improved her aim was tedious at best, but she couldn't argue with her results. There was a flash at the end of the barrel and the next thing she new, the packet was in the air, propelled up by the force and shredded into little strips of red cardboard by the impact.

The slivers caught on the frigid wind and drifted back down, landing in the snow around the barrel. Wynonna turned to Waverly with a self-satisfied grin on her face.

"How was _that_?" she said.

"You destroyed the target," Waverly said. She took a drag off of her cigarette, careful not to cough under Wynonna's gaze, "what am I supposed to shoot at, now?"

Wynonna's eye fell to her feet, to the almost empty bottle. There was just a sip or two left, anyway. She offered the last swig to Waverly, who politely declined. Waverly was already breaking enough rules as it was - she wouldn't jeopardize her role as the designated driver on the way back. Wynonna finished the bottles and placed it, too, on top of the barrel.

Wynonna handed Waverly the gun and stepped back. Waverly changed her stance like she'd been shown, held it in both hands and aimed just the way she'd seen Wynonna do. She pulled the trigger.

The bark of a tree behind the target exploded into a flurry of wood chips, and Waverly dropped the gun in disappointment.

"Dammit."

"Just try again," Wynonna waved off the first shot, and nodded when she heard Waverly spin the revolver to chamber the next round.

It went the way off the first, lost somewhere in the woods, not even close to on target. Waverly tried again and again until all the chambers were empty, and her last attempt produced only the muted click of a spent weapon.

"Told ya'," Wynonna said, stepping closer and taking the gun from her, "the secret's in the whisky."

Wynonna got the bullets from the car and reloaded the gun before giving it back. Waverly tried again, six more shot, all without any kind of measurable achievement. When she'd emptied the gun again, Waverly pushed the weapon back into Wynonna's chest with a frustrated huff.

"Whatever," she said.

“You’ll get the hang of it.”

Wynonna’s smile then reminded Waverly of how they used to practice camping in the fields around the Homestead. It was just the three sisters, and after that, just two. They’d light a fire with too much kindling and not enough fuel, and it would starve to death within the hour. When there was nothing left but ash and embers and waves of warping heat to lean into, they’d sit together and stare back across the field at the Homestead. There was an oil lamp on the porch, casting warm light, making the house seem like a doomed ship on a quiet, black sea. The grass moved with the wind and in the low light, it looked like a steady tide. Under the inspiration of the late hour, Waverly would imagine they were mutineers. Then Wynonna would say something funny or inappropriate, normally both, and the moment would vanish in a laugh and a smile. _That_ smile. A different light in a different darkness, different ship on a different sea.

"Just takes practice. And you've got all the time in the world, baby girl," Wynonna said.

She slid the gun back into the holster. Waverly watched her hands. There was a tremble, just for a second, just for the moment after she let go of the barrel. Wynonna's breath was thick and manifest in front of her.

"All the time in the world."

///

Same time, next week. Waverly knew she had read the text right. Wynonna had confirmed their regular standing appointment, the one appointment she'd never missed before. In fact, Waverly couldn't remember ever being the first to arrive at their designated location.

Waverly checked her watch again. Wynonna was already ten minutes late, which wouldn’t be odd, if Wynonna's behaviour for the past week hadn't been just...weird. And not normal weird. Wynonna had left her on read more often that not, and when she did reply it was with something short and to the point, all the personality and humour strip-mined from her presence. The thought had crossed Waverly's mind that maybe she wasn't even talking to Wynonna at all, but she had cut that train of thought off before she started spiraling.

Waverly tapped her phone against the fleshy part of her hand, a nervous habit. She stared through the trees to the place where Wynonna's car should be parked, like if she looked hard enough it would start to take shape, become material right in front of her eyes.

She sighed, and slid her backpack off of one shoulder and onto the floor. Waverly sat down next to it and ripped it open before rifling around inside.

Waverly waited for forty minutes, passing the time between her assigned reading of Jane Eyre and dipping into the cigarettes she was supposed to give back. When Waverly finally gave up and started to walk back, she was worried about the smell sticking to her, that Gus would be on her the second she crossed the threshold. The cigarettes were burning a hole in her pocket, and she spent the walk back thinking about where she would hide them. Waverly carried her anxiety and her annoyance in a hollow place in her chest, with enough room for them to grow. She kept checking her phone, waiting for a message from Wynonna, already annoyed at whatever excuse she was going to give. In her head, she was already composing her rebuttal.

When she got home, she heard voices from the living room. They stopped as soon as she closed the door behind her. Waverly stepped through the archway and saw Gus and Curtis, sitting together, holding hands.

Waverly's first thought was that she was in trouble, that somehow, they knew everything and she was about to get chewed out like she never had before. Something dropped inside, leaving her with the sick feeling of a sudden fall. Waverly couldn’t figure out how, but with the look on their faces, she was sure she had been thoroughly found out.

Waverly’s mind ran through the list of possible punishments she’d receive. Being grounded, for sure. Curtis seemed like the type to make her smoke a whole pack in a row if he found out about her smoking. And the shooting, that was what she was most worried. That meant they’d make sure she couldn’t see Wynonna, for God knows how long.

“I…” Waverly started as she stepped into the room, ready to defend herself before the accusation had been made. In that moment, she felt like she was living in the worst possible version of reality. Standing in the second before the consequences hit her, Waverly was sure things couldn’t get any worse.

And then she saw the police officer standing in the room.

///

After Wynonna died, it snowed every day for a week. Every day, from dawn onward, opposed Waverly like the whole thing had tilted uphill. She walked through the hours backward, like she was trying to roll something round and heavy to the top, bracing against a difficult gravity.

On the day the snow cleared, the morning of her funeral, Gus came to Waverly’s room holding a brown box in two hands. Inside, Waverly already knew from the expression on her face, was everything that was left of her. It was the closest she’d get to seeing Wynonna’s remains; the brutality of what Wynonna had done to herself demanded a closed casket.

Waverly waited until Gus had closed her door and lifted the lid off the box. She placed it onto her comforter with care, like even the lid on the box was precious. Waverly leaned forward and peered down into it. The first thing she noticed was that it was more than half empty, placed into a box oversized for the contents.

The blank space, pale brown and taunting, was the only thing she could see. How little there was. How little, and even less than she had thought. A stained spot of something appeared on the cardboard base of it, and only then did Waverly notice she was crying.

After the scream that scared all the animals, Gus took the stairs two at a time. She broke through Waverly’s lock with the flat of her shoulder, with the physics of panic and love, and found her like that. Sitting on the floor, knees pulled in, head down and shaking the way she did when something was hysterically funny, except nothing was funny and nothing would ever be funny again.

 Next to her, the open box. The lid overturned. The gun and the jacket on the floor.

///

Waverly spent the funeral staring at the floor, unable to hear, unable to see. She accepted condolences on autopilot, unable to tell one face from another, unable to recall who had said what or when or how sorry they were for her loss. People she only vaguely new milled around, polite and appropriately sullen.

Waverly found herself a spot at the back of the room where noone would bother her while she suffered. She kept coming back to the same few thoughts, burning rubber in her brain. Her pain caught on the same points, stuttered. Started again from the top. _She didn’t even leave a note._

When it was over, and Waverly sat in the back of the car while Gus drove them home, it hit her all at once what she’d missed. She couldn’t remember what people had said, anything about the service, how exactly the priest had chosen to sugar-coat Wynonna’s history. She dug her nails into her legs.

Gus had to pull off onto the side of the road when Waverly started screaming that they had to turn around, that they had to go back, that they had to start over and do it against because she hadn’t been ready, she hadn’t been _ready_.

///

Word spread around Purgatory the way it always did.

Wynonna Earp took her great granddaddy’s gun and a quarter bottle of whiskey into the woods and shot herself in the face, and now everyone knew. The gory details were traded around cheaply, melted down into grease for conversation, censored or exaggerated or, worst of all, entirely true. Waverly found out that the bullet came out the back of her head and stuck in the tree behind her. When she finally went back to school, some boy from the grade below asked her if it was true that wild animals had eaten her dead sister’s eyes. Waverly told him maybe he should kill himself, too, and dreamt that night about a crow with a nest built from the soft tissues of Wynonna’s face.

People started to wonder, publicly, if the gun itself was cursed. Wyatt Earp's gun takes another life, ending the hundred-year drought with the blood of his great-great-granddaughter, the next tragedy in a long and proud lineage. Privately, they started to wonder if it was really such a tragedy at all, or just inevitable.

The box the gun was in had sat, unopened on Waverly’s desk, for the better part of a month. Every time she’d gotten close to lifting the lid, something had held her back. It was like Peacemaker – a name that had started to taste bitter – was trying to keep itself from being seen.

Eventually, even looking at the box became too much. Waverly picked it up like it was hot and stuffed it into a deep corner of her closet where she wouldn’t have to see it. Where she could start to forget it was there.

///

Gus sold Wynonna’s truck to a scrapyard for six hundred dollars in cash and spent the money paying off her casket. When Waverly found out, she swore at Gus for the first time in her life. Curtis had to grab her by the shoulders to stop her from hitting her, striking out with more force and power than it seemed could possibly fit within her small body.

“How _could_ you?” Waverly screamed. Her face was red and ugly, with angry tears. It only made her angrier that she couldn’t stop crying.

Gus, for her part, looked well and truly shocked. In the dim fluorescent kitchen lighting, she clutched her hand to her chest while Curtis wrapped her big arms around Waverly’s middle and pulled her back.

“Why the fuck would you do that, you _bitch_!” Waverly’s voice broke under the strain of it all, and each shuddery inhale only seemed to further agitate the rawness in her throat. When she couldn’t get herself to say anything more, Waverly settled for just sobbing.

“Waverly, it was just a car, it hardly even _drove_ anymore, and we needed the – “

“Just shut the fuck up! Shut up!” Waverly grabbed a decorative pillow from the couch, the closest thing she could reach, and threw it at Gus’ head. She dodged it easily, and it hit the drying rack behind her. In slow motion, four plates followed each other off the counter and onto the floor, hitting and shattering one by one by one.

Gus looked at her with her mouth wide open, between shock and rage, but grief and English were two different languages and Waverly couldn’t even understand her.

Waverly ran up the stairs with Gus’ yelling hitting her in the back, driving her forward, faster, to a deep corner in her closet that she’d only ever been kidding herself into thinking she could forget.

Wynonna pulls her door open hard, stressing the hinges, and went immediately for the box. She picked it up and threw the lid off in the same motion, before tilting it upside down on her bed. The gun landed first, and the jacket over it. There was a set of keys, too. Waverly guessed they fit the car Gus had sold. Useless now.

Waverly grabbed the jacket and put it on. It had been a bit too big on Wynonna, so it really didn’t look right on her. Whatever, she thought. She wasn’t doing this for the fashion.

She grabbed the gun and found, to her surprise, that apparently no one had thought to empty out the bullets. That only saved her time. Waverly hid the weapon under her jacket and left as fast as she had come, down the stairs and out the door before Gus could grab the back of her jacket.

///

Waverly didn’t think about where she was going while she drove – only what she was running from. Through her bleary vision and the ice on the road, not to mention her only very recently acquired ability to drive, it was a miracle she made it as far as she did without crashing.

The car stopped with a lurch, hard enough that Waverly’s seatbelt had to catch her. The fabric pulled tight around her middle and cut down, forcing a harsh breath out when it pushed down on her lungs. Waverly unbuckled and pulled the handbrake up so hard she was sure it would be a bitch to get down again. With what she was planning, Waverly wasn’t too concerned about that being a problem later.

She hopped out of the truck, leaving the door open in her hurry. The jacket was uncomfortable and slowed her down as she traced the familiar path. The heavy leather wasn’t built for running in, and even in the cold Waverly felt her skin get clammy underneath it.

The make-shift shooting range was the same as she remembered leaving it, minus the fresh layer of snow that they’d always had to dust off before they got started. Waverly came to a stop, in perfect line with the barrel. The last time she’d been here, Wynonna had been living in the same world she was.

No one would tell her where they’d found Wynonna’s body. She knew it was in the woods, but that didn’t really help to narrow it down, given where she lived. Part of her had wondered if it had happened right here. It had seemed oddly appropriate to her, and she figured Wynonna may have thought the same thing. But standing there, she knew that wasn’t it. No blood, no crime scene tape. No bullet stuck in a tree where her sister had sat down with the intention to die.

Waverly looked skyward and blinked the tears out of her eyes. Just another question she’d never have an answer to. The where of it wouldn’t matter, if she could only understand the why. _No note_ , Waverly remembers Gus’ hand on hers. _No, she didn’t leave a note. I’m sorry._

Soon her attempts to keep from crying weren’t enough. Waverly bit down on her teeth, trying to tighten up her face, like if she could hide what she was feeling she wouldn’t feel it at all.

No note. No reason. She had known Wynonna’s wasn’t exactly good, but this… this was unfair. This was an amputation. Waverly could forgive Wynonna everything. Everything, except this. Leaving the show at intermission, and not saying anything, and never looking back.

Anger stirred up in Waverly’s chest, wrestling control of her body away from her contemplation. Wynonna could severe herself out of life, could leave behind all the loose ends and unfinished business she wanted, but she couldn’t make Waverly carry it. Not if she refused to play.

Waverly pulled Peacemaker out from her waistband. Every time she held it, she was surprised by just how heavy it was. She supposed it made sense. Solid metal and all that. But you know, appearances. Waverly inspected the gun.

All Waverly could think about was where it’s been. Her sister’s brain matter splashed back onto the barrel, caught between intricate gears, scrubbed out from the grooves. Who knows if they even got all of it.

Waverly spun the revolver around idly, fidgeting with the complex and precise metal component. If she had so little time left, why not waste it? She saw three bullets still chambered. That was fine. She’d only need one.

So this was how it ended, she thought, the great legacy of the lawman Wyatt Earp. The bloodline sniffed out, the last heir dying a spite a girl who would never know she’d been spited.

Waverly stuck free hand in her jacket pocket and felt something. She pulled it out, light and angular, and inspected it. A cigarette box. Wynonna’s brand. She must’ve put it in there, and never taken it out. Waverly flipped the top up. She had more pressing things to worry about than lung cancer half a century down the line. Disappointingly, it was empty, and that seemed to affect Waverly the most out of all of this. The fact that she’d die without the final cigarette she’d been craving.

Waverly lifted the packet above her head, holding onto it by one corner, ready to fling it off into the trees. Then she remembered something. What Wynonna had used for target practice, the last time she’d tried to teach her how to shoot. The last time she’d seen her alive. She still had two extra bullets, by her count.

Waverly crossed the field, dusted the snow off the top of the barrel, and placed the box down. She angled it so the camel logo was straight on, and returned to the line Wynonna had marked out with three rocks she thought looked kind of funny.

Waverly lined up the shot and closed one eye.

The next thing she saw, the packet wasn’t where it had been. In fact, it wasn’t in any one place at all. It had been shredded up, destroyed by the bullet, leaving a mess of tobacco and paper across the top of the barrel.

She had made the shot.

Waverly barely kept her grip on the gun, almost dropping it in her shock. In the second after the bang, the silence contrasted by the boom before, Waverly heard a sound in her head like a radio had been turned onto the wrong channel, real sound fighting against static. Louder in one ear, like broken earphones.

The static turning into ringing, turned into the distressed calls of all the birds fleeing the trees. The last slivers of the packet drifted back to earth and stuck in the snow.

She had _made_ the shot.

All at once, the heat and the darkness lifted from her mind, displaced by a sheer shock.

Waverly pressed pulled the gun tight against her, cradling it into her chest. It was still hot from firing.

“Hey! Did you see tha-,” she turned around, smiling despite everything, looking at the space behind her where Wynonna had once stood and breathed and existed completely. Waverly stopped talking, but somehow, the feeling in her chest didn’t fade. Maybe it was just the heat from the barrel. Maybe.

Under the thrill of her success, a sudden and unexpected high, Waverly saw a blur in the tree line. She spun around but was too slow to see details. All Waverly could see was black on black and black.

And a tiny flash of silver.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [ tumblr @ earpcin](https://earpcin.tumblr.com/).


End file.
